Impressionism Impressionism in the early start were artists rebelling against the old art style and making new ones with new ideas and ideals to show and prove. Impressionism was somewhat the switch between the old art into what we today know as Modern art. Before Impressionism there was a school in France called the Royal academy of Art which took in the most talented artists in the country/world to improve their skills, in that time it was normal to paint historical subjects while landscape and still life were less interesting, but a group of known as Barbizon artists started turning to nature and painting in nature instead of studios. Artists like Thèodore Rousseau and Camille Corot started painting forest, villages and field scenes which later influenced the younger generation wanting to also draw this, these people were known as the impressionists. The battle was to get the paintings into the anual salon which was a great art exhibition, but the salon juries were more traditional and often rejected the Impressionist drawings of nature, this the impressionists got angry about and accused them for not treating them fairly. To help the New paintings emperor Napoleon 3rd made an exhibition called Salon desRefusès, which showed works rejected by the official annual salon, here were many works associated with impressionist works. This was not enough for the new style so they chose to show their works with out the governments acceptance in the studio of the photographer Nadar this first happened and the name was created about at the same time. The word Impressionism was inspired by the painting Impression, Sunrise. This name was first meant as a rude word, but got soon used as the word for all paintings in this style. The impressionism manly were paintings about landscape scenes, but were also known for scenes about urban subject meter and various forms of recreation, including boating and strolling along rivers and across bridges. The artists were also influenced by the Japanese, who were painting pictures with asymmetry. Art in the Impressionism in general The art of the impressionist painters were against the traditional French painting which was academic painting and romanticism and were more into the painting of outdoor subjects especially landscape pictures. The impressionism was in the start a protest against the French painting tradition and also made the paintings seen by some people as bad, only made for protests; even his name impressionism was meant to be an insult against the art. The name Impressionism stayed though because the sympatric people used the word to referee to the impression the painter had got when painting it. The impressionist painters were in the start working together to create and protect their art, but as the art was more excepted in the society the artists started seeing each other as rivals. Today modern painting is highly influenced by impressionist painting in colour range, brushwork and approach of nature. Monet
Claude Monet was one of the main persons in the impressionist movement which was against the traditional French painting in the later 19th century. Monet was himself a known painter constantly painting in the impressionist style, themes like landscape and leisure activities of Paris. Monet was born in Paris, but at a young age he moved to Normandy. There he was introduced to plain air painting by EugèneBoudin and also was studying a bit with Duchlandscapist Johan Jongkind. When Monet became twenty two years old he joined the Paris studio of the academic history painter Charles Gleyre. Here he got class mate like Auguste Renori, FrèdèricBazille and other people who would become impressionists. Monet had in his early years a pretty good success in painting with themes like landscape, seascape and portraitswhich were accepted by the annual salons, but some of his better works were not accepted with the meaning they were not traditional enough, this inspired or triggered him to join other painters in establishing their own exhibition in 1874. His painting Impression sunrise, a painting which for many was seen as an unfinished work gave them the name impressionists which is the art style today, but at this time the word was used negative. Monet often was drawing what was in his close surroundings, painting people and places he knew very good, this made both his wifes Camille and Alice frequent used models in his paintings. He also painted unknown landscape paintings through his jury around the north of France and London. When he returned to France after his trip he moved to four destinations, first Argenteuil then Vètheuil then Poissly and finally Giverny in 1883. His houses and gardens became gathering places for his friends to paint together (Maybe he moved so much because he was sick of drawing the same scene over and over again =P) Monet was inspired by the Barbizon painters to draw landscape paintings, but unlike the Babizon painters Monet had developed his own technique to capture nature. Instead of drawing only sketches of his planed scene he took along big canvases outside and started painting only going into his studio to rework and complete the painting. He saw this as his quest, to capture nature as good as possible. His painting was influenced by the Japanese woodblock painting where asymmetry was used instead of 3d modelling. unmediated colours and using light collared primes on his canvases were also two key elements in Monet’s paintings. Renoir Pierre Auguste Renori was born in Limoges located in France, he was a child of a working class family. As a young boy he worked in a porcelain factory where his skills in drawing lead him to be chosen to draw the patterns and decoration on the fine china, he also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorated fans. In 1962 he started studying art from the teacher Charles Gleyer, here he also meet known impressionists like Alfred Sisley, FrèdèricBazille and Claude Monet. Unlike Monet, Renori sometimes during the 1860s didn't have enough money to buy himself paint, this in part due to the Franco-Prussian War. In 1874 a ten year friend ship with Jules Le Coeur ended, this lead to him losing valuable support gained by the association and the welcome to stay at their house and his favourite painting theme, when loosing this, it resulted to him changing his painting subjects. The same year the impressionist exhibition was held where six of his paintings were shown and at the same two of his works were also shown in London, he as finally getting known. In 1881 he started a trip around Europe to see paintings drawn by famous painters like Raphael and Diego Velázquez. In 1882 Renori meat the composer Richard Wagener in Palermo where he painted a portrait of Wagener only using 35 minutes. In 1883 he spent the summer in Guernesy making fifteen paintings in little more then a month, where many of the paintings were landscape paintings with themes like beaches, cliffs, bays, forests and mountains. In 1890 he married Aline VictorineCharigot which he already had got a child with in 1885. This made him paint many paintings of his wife and daily family life. Together they got three sons which of two went into the moving pictures industry, the film industry. In his later years he started getting major problems painting, he was weal chair bound, got progressive deformities in his hands and alkalosis in his right shoulder, but despite all this he still painted with a brush strapped to his paralyzed fingers. His art still exists today with two of his artworks sold for more then $70million, they are Balaumoulinde la Galette and Montmartre. Pissarro Camille Pissarro was born in Virgin Island in 1830 to a Jewish French father with Portuguese origin and mother, Rachel ManzonoPomie who was a native of Danish Antilles. His Father sent Pissaro to Paris to go to a boarding school in Passy. The free time Pissarro had from school he used on sketching the countryside and visiting museums. His father wants him to work in his business, but Pissarrodoesn’t and flees together with Fritz Melbye to Venezuela where he stays two years, in 1855 his father gives up and lets him follow his dream to become a painter and is again sent to Paris to study painting. Pissarro went to Swiss Academy where there was no real courses, but many artists work together and share ideas about painting, the other good thing about the academy was there were models who they could paint. At this time he paints surroundings of Paris, he is inspired by the style of Corot which he gets in contact with. It is now he starts landscape painting for real (1855) In 1859 he sent in his first painting to the annual salon which got accepted to be shown there and one year later he lives with Julie Vellay who together get eight children. Most of the years one or more of his paintings got accepted for the annual salon, but this didn't mean he always sold something, giving him financial problems with such a large family. At this time he painted very different from the other known impressionist painters like Monet and Renori. He used colour modulation to show space depth while beingaccurate on the composition of the painting. During the French-Persian war he stays in London, where he leaves behind all his paintings which most of his paintings got destroyed by the Persians. After the war he again returns to Pontoise in Pariswhere he stays for the next ten years. In 1872 Pissarro starts a collaboration with Cézanne who have known each other for more then ten years, together they help each other improving their artistic skills. In 1874 the first Impressionistexhibition was held, Parrisso was the founder and teacher of the movement advising young artists and introducing them to each other, and encouraging them to join the Impressionist painting style which he had contributed to create. In 1882 he left Pontoise and sett in Osny not to fare away from Pontoise, here he started drawing more detailed landscape paintings such as market scenes and street scenes often with many characters, also he started making bigger difference in the colours used next to each other and used shorter brush strokes. Already in 1884 he again moved to Eragny where he now would settle for the rest of his life. Music in the Impressionism in general Music in the impressionism had somehow the same aim as the impressionist painters had, they wanted to create a music peace where the aim was to create a descriptive impression, this didn't necessarily mean to give a clear picture in a persons head, but rather create a mood or atmosphere. To achieve that the impressionist musicians had to be very good at combining every aspect of music (Melody, harmony, colour, rhythm and form. The Impressionists often had melodies which were short and repeated in different ways to give different moods to the people listening to the music. When the impressionist musicians wanted to give "colour" to their music they did that with putting in notes in a scale system, unlike the traditional major to minor, they included pentatonic, whole tone or other exterior scales. In impressionist music harmony was playing a great role in the music, unlike the older music chards don't play such a big role in creating the theme of the music, the chords are rather used to give the colour and mood of the piece and are not used so much to build tension in the music. Also the impressionist musicians gave great emphasis on the instrumental timbers which was supposed to create a slight vision of colour in the music, also important in impressionist music , just like the art was to avoid the traditional music, mainly Romanticism. Impressionism also tries to take distance from the traditional harmonic progression, instead using chords, valued individually instead of seeing them as one piece. Debussy Claude Dabussy was a French composer, trained at the Paris Conservatoire. He was originally planning to become a pianist, but changed his mind and became a composer. He had a special musical language which was very much French inspired. He extended the existing limits of harmony and form, with a sophisticated variation of them normal, this he did in both piano writings and orchestra writings. Debussey was born in a low class family, this lead him to net getting school education in a normal way, and he was supposed to become a sailor, but Debussy had made an interest in music and his aunt paid for some piano lessons. After some lessons he started lessons with a person who had learned from Fréderic Chopin. With his new teacher he quickly made progress and at the young age of eleven he was accepted to learn at the Paris Conservatory, where he spent the next ten years. Here he came with what the teachers saw as absurd ideas, but always said "it's not the theory, you merely have to listen. Pleasure is law. He also studied traditional technique with the wish to get the highest honour, the Prixde Rome. In 1884 after loads of compositions he finally got the honour Prixde Rome with the piece called The Prodigal Son. He won the honour to go to Rome, something he actually hated from the very moment he got there. When he returned to Paris after three years in Rome he began composing music which would change music and get the audience to think about the music. His first composition in this new style "The Blessed Maiden" hinted to his new style where he looked at poetry and art for inspiration. By 1905 Debussy was famous over whole Europe for his new musical style. His styles goal was to get the audience to experience what happened in the music instead of just listening to it. He wanted the audience to be able to image what happened and see a picture in their head instead of just enjoying the music. Ravel Maurice Ravel was born in France and already at the age of seven he began playing the piano and taking lessons. Five to six years later he was so good playing and understanding the piano that he started composing his own music for the piano. He parents saw the potential in their son and sent him to the Conservatoirede Paris where he was supposed to practise his skills and learn from the best. He started out as a prepatory student, but later as he became better, he became a piano major. His teacher was Gabriel Fauré who he was taught from in 14 years. During his stay in the Conservatuire he like many other talents had the goal to get the Prixde Rome, which meant he numerous times performed. Prixde Rome was never won by Ravel although one year he was the clear favourite for winning it, but a scandal happened which took from him his win, which made Ravel leave the Conservatuire. He though continued composing music with main influences from American Jazz, Asian music and traditional folksong from Europe. He never included anything with religious matters because he himself was believed to be an atheist, this lead him to hate music from people like Richard Wagener who used religious themes in their music. During World war one Ravel was simply too old and had a to bad health to be able to fight for his country. This led him to being an ambulance driver through the war. In 1932 Ravel got hit in a car accident which only made his health worse, this lead him to taking a neouro operation in 1937 which turned out to fail and soon after he died. Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams was a famous English composer of his generation which learned to compose from many of the most famous composers of that time, this also including Maurice Ravel. He created in some way an idiom of specific English music. He was influenced by his interest in folksongs, but also put in his personal signature, with putting in his personal language and vision. Ralph Vaughan Williams lost his father in an early age and was left with only his mother to take care of him. He was never poor during his childhood and went to Tirnity College where he studied history and music. He found music to be his drive and continued his school path in the Royal College of Music, where he worked together with people like John Parry, Wood and Stanford. In 1897 he arrived Adeline Fiher, but at the same year Vaughan travelled to Berlin to study with Max Bruch and seeking Ravel as a teacher. In 1903 he started his interest in English folksongs, collecting them and using their influence to him in his compositions. He started working in English Hymnal as an editor where he further developed his composing style, in this piece he want beyondediting, introducing several new hymn tunes. The most notable one being the Sine nomine, the tune for the hymn of all Saints. He continued his remarkable and strange compositions until world war one broke out and he had to fight for his nation. He served in the medical corps, where he became famous for organizing choral singing in the trenches. He during the war slowlyclimbed up the ranks and at the end of the war he was an artillery officer. The war also effected his music which from then on was more dark then it was before the war, due to all the terrible stuff he had seen. The music though was still popular and well liked which lead him to continuing making music until he became 87 where he died. Delius Fritz Theodor Albert Delius was born in England in 1862. He grew up in a family where music culture was on, this lead him to learning the violin and piano, getting great skills in both of them before he reached his teens. he went to Bradford Grammar school for four years before he want to the International collage in London for two years before he finally spent some years in his fathersbusiness. Delius though didn't like the business life and bagged his parents to let him try a career in music. His parents in the end let in and sent him Florida, where he started piano lessons at Thomas Ward, which became an early influence in his music. Also the black peoples singing inspired Delius. Here he stayed for one and a half year before hem moved to Verginia with a confidence to teach music in his own right. He again asked his father for permission to go a step further in music, this time it was full music education he asked for, which his father gave in for and let him do. Delius studied two years at the Leipzig Conservatorium, but after these two years he had enough and left for Paris where he also went from producing small scale instrumentals and orchestral to making Operas like Irmelin (1890-2), The Magic Fountain (1894-5) and Koanga (1895-7), this though didn't mean he stopped with composing orchestras and instrumentals, but rather went to the larger production of them. During his stay in Paris Delius had little chance to hear his own music, it was not before 1897 in Oslo where he got to here his own music in Folkerådet, seaming to like what he heard he immediately travelled to Germany for listening to the first orchestral work played in the country from his work which was "over the hills and far away" In 1901 he started his careerpeek with introducing "A village Romeo and Julie" followed by numerous other compositions, this success lasted until after the war where after this it settled down again. During this time though he became very famous and well known for his good works. After (also during) the war his health started falling, he became almost blind and the use of his limbs started failing him so in 1928 he could no longer compose anymore music due to his bad health and six years later 1934 he died. He had though made it to make master pieces which still are known today. sources http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/impressionism/background1.html http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Art/impressionism.shtml http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/cmon/hd_cmon.htm http://www.pierre-auguste-renoir.org/biography.html http://www.impressionniste.net/pissarro_camille.htm http://library.thinkquest.org/27110/noframes/periods/impressionism.html http://www.answers.com/topic/impressionist-music http://library.thinkquest.org/27110/noframes/composers/debussy.html http://www.8notes.com/biographies/ravel.asp http://www.classicalarchives.com/composer/3503.html#tvf=tracks&tv=about http://www.delius.org.uk/g_biography.htm
Impressionism
Impressionism in the early start were artists rebelling against the old art style and making new ones with new ideas and ideals to show and prove. Impressionism was somewhat the switch between the old art into what we today know as Modern art.
Before Impressionism there was a school in France called the Royal academy of Art which took in the most talented artists in the country/world to improve their skills, in that time it was normal to paint historical subjects while landscape and still life were less interesting, but a group of known as Barbizon artists started turning to nature and painting in nature instead of studios. Artists like Thèodore Rousseau and Camille Corot started painting forest, villages and field scenes which later influenced the younger generation wanting to also draw this, these people were known as the impressionists. The battle was to get the paintings into the anual salon which was a great art exhibition, but the salon juries were more traditional and often rejected the Impressionist drawings of nature, this the impressionists got angry about and accused them for not treating them fairly. To help the New paintings emperor Napoleon 3rd made an exhibition called Salon des Refusès, which showed works rejected by the official annual salon, here were many works associated with impressionist works.
This was not enough for the new style so they chose to show their works with out the governments acceptance in the studio of the photographer Nadar this first happened and the name was created about at the same time. The word Impressionism was inspired by the painting Impression, Sunrise. This name was first meant as a rude word, but got soon used as the word for all paintings in this style.
The impressionism manly were paintings about landscape scenes, but were also known for scenes about urban subject meter and various forms of recreation, including boating and strolling along rivers and across bridges. The artists were also influenced by the Japanese, who were painting pictures with asymmetry.
Art in the Impressionism in general
The art of the impressionist painters were against the traditional French painting which was academic painting and romanticism and were more into the painting of outdoor subjects especially landscape pictures. The impressionism was in the start a protest against the French painting tradition and also made the paintings seen by some people as bad, only made for protests; even his name impressionism was meant to be an insult against the art. The name Impressionism stayed though because the sympatric people used the word to referee to the impression the painter had got when painting it. The impressionist painters were in the start working together to create and protect their art, but as the art was more excepted in the society the artists started seeing each other as rivals. Today modern painting is highly influenced by impressionist painting in colour range, brushwork and approach of nature.
Monet
Claude Monet was one of the main persons in the impressionist movement which was against the traditional French painting in the later 19th century. Monet was himself a known painter constantly painting in the impressionist style, themes like landscape and leisure activities of Paris.
Monet was born in Paris, but at a young age he moved to Normandy. There he was introduced to plain air painting by Eugène Boudin and also was studying a bit with Duch landscapist Johan Jongkind. When Monet became twenty two years old he joined the Paris studio of the academic history painter Charles Gleyre. Here he got class mate like Auguste Renori, Frèdèric Bazille and other people who would become impressionists. Monet had in his early years a pretty good success in painting with themes like landscape, seascape and portraits which were accepted by the annual salons, but some of his better works were not accepted with the meaning they were not traditional enough, this inspired or triggered him to join other painters in establishing their own exhibition in 1874. His painting Impression sunrise, a painting which for many was seen as an unfinished work gave them the name impressionists which is the art style today, but at this time the word was used negative.
Monet often was drawing what was in his close surroundings, painting people and places he knew very good, this made both his wifes Camille and Alice frequent used models in his paintings. He also painted unknown landscape paintings through his jury around the north of France and London. When he returned to France after his trip he moved to four destinations, first Argenteuil then Vètheuil then Poissly and finally Giverny in 1883. His houses and gardens became gathering places for his friends to paint together (Maybe he moved so much because he was sick of drawing the same scene over and over again =P)
Monet was inspired by the Barbizon painters to draw landscape paintings, but unlike the Babizon painters Monet had developed his own technique to capture nature. Instead of drawing only sketches of his planed scene he took along big canvases outside and started painting only going into his studio to rework and complete the painting. He saw this as his quest, to capture nature as good as possible. His painting was influenced by the Japanese woodblock painting where asymmetry was used instead of 3d modelling. unmediated colours and using light collared primes on his canvases were also two key elements in Monet’s paintings.
Renoir
Pierre Auguste Renori was born in Limoges located in France, he was a child of a working class family. As a young boy he worked in a porcelain factory where his skills in drawing lead him to be chosen to draw the patterns and decoration on the fine china, he also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorated fans. In 1962 he started studying art from the teacher Charles Gleyer, here he also meet known impressionists like Alfred Sisley, Frèdèric Bazille and Claude Monet.
Unlike Monet, Renori sometimes during the 1860s didn't have enough money to buy himself paint, this in part due to the Franco-Prussian War.
In 1874 a ten year friend ship with Jules Le Coeur ended, this lead to him losing valuable support gained by the association and the welcome to stay at their house and his favourite painting theme, when loosing this, it resulted to him changing his painting subjects.
The same year the impressionist exhibition was held where six of his paintings were shown and at the same two of his works were also shown in London, he as finally getting known.
In 1881 he started a trip around Europe to see paintings drawn by famous painters like Raphael and Diego Velázquez. In 1882 Renori meat the composer Richard Wagener in Palermo where he painted a portrait of Wagener only using 35 minutes. In 1883 he spent the summer in Guernesy making fifteen paintings in little more then a month, where many of the paintings were landscape paintings with themes like beaches, cliffs, bays, forests and mountains.
In 1890 he married Aline Victorine Charigot which he already had got a child with in 1885. This made him paint many paintings of his wife and daily family life. Together they got three sons which of two went into the moving pictures industry, the film industry.
In his later years he started getting major problems painting, he was weal chair bound, got progressive deformities in his hands and alkalosis in his right shoulder, but despite all this he still painted with a brush strapped to his paralyzed fingers.
His art still exists today with two of his artworks sold for more then $70million, they are Bal au moulin de la Galette and Montmartre.
Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was born in Virgin Island in 1830 to a Jewish French father with Portuguese origin and mother, Rachel Manzono Pomie who was a native of Danish Antilles. His Father sent Pissaro to Paris to go to a boarding school in Passy. The free time Pissarro had from school he used on sketching the countryside and visiting museums. His father wants him to work in his business, but Pissarro doesn’t and flees together with Fritz Melbye to Venezuela where he stays two years, in 1855 his father gives up and lets him follow his dream to become a painter and is again sent to Paris to study painting.
Pissarro went to Swiss Academy where there was no real courses, but many artists work together and share ideas about painting, the other good thing about the academy was there were models who they could paint. At this time he paints surroundings of Paris, he is inspired by the style of Corot which he gets in contact with. It is now he starts landscape painting for real (1855)
In 1859 he sent in his first painting to the annual salon which got accepted to be shown there and one year later he lives with Julie Vellay who together get eight children.
Most of the years one or more of his paintings got accepted for the annual salon, but this didn't mean he always sold something, giving him financial problems with such a large family. At this time he painted very different from the other known impressionist painters like Monet and Renori. He used colour modulation to show space depth while being accurate on the composition of the painting.
During the French-Persian war he stays in London, where he leaves behind all his paintings which most of his paintings got destroyed by the Persians. After the war he again returns to Pontoise in Paris where he stays for the next ten years. In 1872 Pissarro starts a collaboration with Cézanne who have known each other for more then ten years, together they help each other improving their artistic skills. In 1874 the first Impressionist exhibition was held, Parrisso was the founder and teacher of the movement advising young artists and introducing them to each other, and encouraging them to join the Impressionist painting style which he had contributed to create.
In 1882 he left Pontoise and sett in Osny not to fare away from Pontoise, here he started drawing more detailed landscape paintings such as market scenes and street scenes often with many characters, also he started making bigger difference in the colours used next to each other and used shorter brush strokes.
Already in 1884 he again moved to Eragny where he now would settle for the rest of his life.
Music in the Impressionism in general
Music in the impressionism had somehow the same aim as the impressionist painters had, they wanted to create a music peace where the aim was to create a descriptive impression, this didn't necessarily mean to give a clear picture in a persons head, but rather create a mood or atmosphere. To achieve that the impressionist musicians had to be very good at combining every aspect of music (Melody, harmony, colour, rhythm and form. The Impressionists often had melodies which were short and repeated in different ways to give different moods to the people listening to the music. When the impressionist musicians wanted to give "colour" to their music they did that with putting in notes in a scale system, unlike the traditional major to minor, they included pentatonic, whole tone or other exterior scales. In impressionist music harmony was playing a great role in the music, unlike the older music chards don't play such a big role in creating the theme of the music, the chords are rather used to give the colour and mood of the piece and are not used so much to build tension in the music.
Also the impressionist musicians gave great emphasis on the instrumental timbers which was supposed to create a slight vision of colour in the music, also important in impressionist music , just like the art was to avoid the traditional music, mainly Romanticism.
Impressionism also tries to take distance from the traditional harmonic progression, instead using chords, valued individually instead of seeing them as one piece.
Debussy
Claude Dabussy was a French composer, trained at the Paris Conservatoire. He was originally planning to become a pianist, but changed his mind and became a composer. He had a special musical language which was very much French inspired. He extended the existing limits of harmony and form, with a sophisticated variation of them normal, this he did in both piano writings and orchestra writings.
Debussey was born in a low class family, this lead him to net getting school education in a normal way, and he was supposed to become a sailor, but Debussy had made an interest in music and his aunt paid for some piano lessons. After some lessons he started lessons with a person who had learned from Fréderic Chopin. With his new teacher he quickly made progress and at the young age of eleven he was accepted to learn at the Paris Conservatory, where he spent the next ten years. Here he came with what the teachers saw as absurd ideas, but always said "it's not the theory, you merely have to listen. Pleasure is law. He also studied traditional technique with the wish to get the highest honour, the Prix de Rome. In 1884 after loads of compositions he finally got the honour Prix de Rome with the piece called The Prodigal Son. He won the honour to go to Rome, something he actually hated from the very moment he got there. When he returned to Paris after three years in Rome he began composing music which would change music and get the audience to think about the music. His first composition in this new style "The Blessed Maiden" hinted to his new style where he looked at poetry and art for inspiration. By 1905 Debussy was famous over whole Europe for his new musical style.
His styles goal was to get the audience to experience what happened in the music instead of just listening to it. He wanted the audience to be able to image what happened and see a picture in their head instead of just enjoying the music.
Ravel
Maurice Ravel was born in France and already at the age of seven he began playing the piano and taking lessons. Five to six years later he was so good playing and understanding the piano that he started composing his own music for the piano. He parents saw the potential in their son and sent him to the Conservatoire de Paris where he was supposed to practise his skills and learn from the best. He started out as a prepatory student, but later as he became better, he became a piano major. His teacher was Gabriel Fauré who he was taught from in 14 years. During his stay in the Conservatuire he like many other talents had the goal to get the Prix de Rome, which meant he numerous times performed. Prix de Rome was never won by Ravel although one year he was the clear favourite for winning it, but a scandal happened which took from him his win, which made Ravel leave the Conservatuire. He though continued composing music with main influences from American Jazz, Asian music and traditional folksong from Europe. He never included anything with religious matters because he himself was believed to be an atheist, this lead him to hate music from people like Richard Wagener who used religious themes in their music.
During World war one Ravel was simply too old and had a to bad health to be able to fight for his country. This led him to being an ambulance driver through the war. In 1932 Ravel got hit in a car accident which only made his health worse, this lead him to taking a neouro operation in 1937 which turned out to fail and soon after he died.
Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams was a famous English composer of his generation which learned to compose from many of the most famous composers of that time, this also including Maurice Ravel. He created in some way an idiom of specific English music. He was influenced by his interest in folksongs, but also put in his personal signature, with putting in his personal language and vision.
Ralph Vaughan Williams lost his father in an early age and was left with only his mother to take care of him. He was never poor during his childhood and went to Tirnity College where he studied history and music. He found music to be his drive and continued his school path in the Royal College of Music, where he worked together with people like John Parry, Wood and Stanford. In 1897 he arrived Adeline Fiher, but at the same year Vaughan travelled to Berlin to study with Max Bruch and seeking Ravel as a teacher. In 1903 he started his interest in English folksongs, collecting them and using their influence to him in his compositions. He started working in English Hymnal as an editor where he further developed his composing style, in this piece he want beyond editing, introducing several new hymn tunes. The most notable one being the Sine nomine, the tune for the hymn of all Saints.
He continued his remarkable and strange compositions until world war one broke out and he had to fight for his nation. He served in the medical corps, where he became famous for organizing choral singing in the trenches. He during the war slowly climbed up the ranks and at the end of the war he was an artillery officer. The war also effected his music which from then on was more dark then it was before the war, due to all the terrible stuff he had seen. The music though was still popular and well liked which lead him to continuing making music until he became 87 where he died.
Delius
Fritz Theodor Albert Delius was born in England in 1862. He grew up in a family where music culture was on, this lead him to learning the violin and piano, getting great skills in both of them before he reached his teens. he went to Bradford Grammar school for four years before he want to the International collage in London for two years before he finally spent some years in his fathers business. Delius though didn't like the business life and bagged his parents to let him try a career in music. His parents in the end let in and sent him Florida, where he started piano lessons at Thomas Ward, which became an early influence in his music. Also the black peoples singing inspired Delius. Here he stayed for one and a half year before hem moved to Verginia with a confidence to teach music in his own right. He again asked his father for permission to go a step further in music, this time it was full music education he asked for, which his father gave in for and let him do. Delius studied two years at the Leipzig Conservatorium, but after these two years he had enough and left for Paris where he also went from producing small scale instrumentals and orchestral to making Operas like Irmelin (1890-2), The Magic Fountain (1894-5) and Koanga (1895-7), this though didn't mean he stopped with composing orchestras and instrumentals, but rather went to the larger production of them. During his stay in Paris Delius had little chance to hear his own music, it was not before 1897 in Oslo where he got to here his own music in Folkerådet, seaming to like what he heard he immediately travelled to Germany for listening to the first orchestral work played in the country from his work which was "over the hills and far away" In 1901 he started his career peek with introducing "A village Romeo and Julie" followed by numerous other compositions, this success lasted until after the war where after this it settled down again. During this time though he became very famous and well known for his good works. After (also during) the war his health started falling, he became almost blind and the use of his limbs started failing him so in 1928 he could no longer compose anymore music due to his bad health and six years later 1934 he died. He had though made it to make master pieces which still are known today.
sources
http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/impressionism/background1.html
http://www.discoverfrance.net/France/Art/impressionism.shtml
http://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/cmon/hd_cmon.htm
http://www.pierre-auguste-renoir.org/biography.html
http://www.impressionniste.net/pissarro_camille.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/27110/noframes/periods/impressionism.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/impressionist-music
http://library.thinkquest.org/27110/noframes/composers/debussy.html
http://www.8notes.com/biographies/ravel.asp
http://www.classicalarchives.com/composer/3503.html#tvf=tracks&tv=about
http://www.delius.org.uk/g_biography.htm